


The Black Archive

by Persiflage



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Big Macho Chief Scientific Officer, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Elemental Weirdness, F/F, Inspired by Fanfiction, Protective Kate Stewart, Silver being Silver, The Black Archive (Doctor Who), Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29629689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: Crossover: Martha Jones didn't expect to encounter the stranger Silver again, but here he is, larger than life and lurking within the supposedly secure Black Archive under the Tower of London. Kate Stewart is less than impressed.
Relationships: Kate Lethbridge-Stewart/Martha Jones, Martha Jones & Silver (S&S)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Black Archive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisbluespirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Trouble on the Line](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14928708) by [thisbluespirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit). 



> Continuing my new habit of handwriting fic for someone, I sent this 'Live Action' fic to thisbluespirit. It's an unofficial sequel to her [Trouble on the Line](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14928708).

Dr Martha Jones follows her boss, Kate Stewart, into the Black Archive, then barely manages to avoid walking into Kate’s back when she stops dead a short distance inside the door. She moves around to the older woman’s side and spots a grey-suited, red haired man sitting quite at ease on one of the desks.

“You?” she says, quite astonished.

“You know this man?” Kate asks in that hard, business-like tone she sometimes adopts (which is quite different to the tone she uses at home, as Martha knows).

“This is Silver,” Martha tells her, pushing aside her somewhat inappropriate thoughts. “You remember that incident on the Tube a few weeks ago, which I reported to you?”

“I remember,” Kate says, and Martha knows the other woman quite well enough to recognise that Kate’s recalling that Silver had used her as a conduit to deal with the ‘haunted’ mobile phone. “What do you want, Silver? Because if it’s to use Martha as bait again –” 

Silver holds up a hand to stop Kate from uttering what Martha suspects would have been a quite nasty threat to the technician. “I’ve no such intention, I promise you. I came to warn you that you have a rather dangerous artefact in here, something that shouldn’t be stored in amongst all this dangerous alien technology.”

“Really?” Kate’s tone is dripping with scepticism and it occurs to Martha that the blonde is as immune to Silver’s charm as she herself had been. She’s not quite sure why that thought pleases her so much, but it does.

“Really,” Silver says, his charm gone and his affable tone almost as business-like as Kate’s.

“Which artefact?” asks the blonde.

“This one.” Silver picks something up from the desk he’s sitting on and Martha recognises it immediately. It’s an oddity – something she had found while on a mission for UNIT. For reasons that elude her still, she’d been drawn to it, something about the Anglo-Saxon brooch had ‘pinged’ to her senses (there’s no other way to describe its effect on her, to Martha’s annoyance since she’s a scientist and she prefers precision to vagueness).

“How did you know it was there?” asks Kate.

Silver smiles enigmatically. “I sensed it,” he says. “Something of its aura clung to Dr Jones when I met her on the Tube, but I was unable to investigate it until now.”

“Its ‘aura clung to Dr Jones’?” repeats Kate, sounding as if she’s still sceptical at what she perceives as a threat, though whether she thinks Silver is a general threat to UNIT or a more specific threat to Martha herself, the young woman isn’t sure. Of course, it could be both.

Silver nods. 

“So what are you going to do about this dangerous artefact?” asks Kate.

“Why neutralise it, of course.” Silver sounds surprised by the question.

“Like you neutralised that mobile phone?” Martha asks, wondering if she’ll be allowed to watch.

Silver smiles at her. “Something like that,” he agrees.

“Are you going to neutralise it here?” asks Kate.

“And risk it inflaming the dangerous alien technology?” Silver says, clearly horrified at the idea. “Certainly not.” He huffs. “That would be equivalent to you setting off a hand grenade in a firework factory.”

“Let’s not do that,” Martha says hastily; Kate looks appalled at the mere thought. “Can I watch?” she asks Silver.

“Martha!” Kates again forgets her usual formality at the thought. 

Silver smiles at Martha. “Unfortunately, my dear Dr Jones, where I am going you cannot come.”

“Oh,” Martha says, wondering if she sounds as disappointed as she feels.

“I shall, however, return the brooch once it’s been neutralised and is no longer a threat.” He smirks at them. “I’m sure you’ll manage to find something to do in the interim.” His expression is terribly knowing, Martha thinks, and she feels her face heating up in response to the insinuation in his words.

Kate, however, just gives him one of her famously quelling looks. Not that it seems to quell Silver, whose smirk deepens before he disappears without warning and just a glint from the brooch in his hand.

“At least he wasn’t outright threatening us,” Kate says. 

“I don’t think it’s his way,” Martha says.

“Hmm.” Kate sighs, then leads the way further into the room. “Right, might as well get started on this inventory,” she says. 

Martha tells herself that she isn’t feeling a pang of disappointment at Kate’s words, although she is, a little bit. Still, she thinks, it’s better not to have Silver reappear while they’re in the middle of something less than professional; Kate is, after all, very strict about how much of their private relationship is on display for public consumption, and Martha abides by the rules most of the time because she doesn’t want to be the subject of gossip.

They’ve been working steadily for an hour and a half when Silver suddenly reappears, startling them both quite badly.

“I swear I’m going to fit you with a cat collar and bell,” Kate says, repressing an oath, if Martha’s any judge.

Silver smirks and Martha rolls her eyes. “Not really my style, I’m afraid.” He holds out his right hand, the Anglo-Saxon brooch glinting on his palm. “It’s as safe as anything can be, now,” he tells them, almost preening.

“Thank you,” Martha says, taking it from him and feeling a residual warmth in the metal.

“Where did you find it?” asks Silver.

“In a rather remote village in Oxfordshire,” Martha says. “It – um – it ‘pinged’ my senses.” She scowls. “I can’t be more precise than that. There was just something that drew me to the spot where it was buried.”

“Was there anything else buried there?” Silver asks.

Martha shakes her head. “Not that we could find.”

“Hmm.” He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “There’s something different about you, Dr Jones. Something different about your relationship to Time.”

Martha gives him a startled look. “Well, yes,” she says. “I’ve travelled with a Time Lord.”

“Ah.” Silver looks enlightened. “A fascinating species.”

“Yes,” agrees Martha.

“Although, of course, Humanity is fairly fascinating, too.” He smiles brightly at them. “Well, I must be going. Take care of yourself, Dr Jones, Ms Stewart.” With that, he vanishes again.

Kate takes the brooch from Martha’s hand, and she can’t help a soft exclamation of surprise. “What?” asks the blonde.

“It’s no longer ‘pinging’ my senses,” Martha says.

“Then we must assume Silver has neutralised it, as he said he would,” Kate observes.

“Did you doubt that he had?” Martha asks curiously.

“Let’s just say that I was sceptical,” Kate answers. “It’s trying enough that both the Doctor and Professor Song can just turn up here without warning, without adding the mysterious Silver to the list of people breaching our security at will.”

Martha nods, then accepts the brooch back from Kate, trying not to let her fingers linger longer than necessary.

“I wonder if you’ll see Silver again?” Kate ponders as Martha crosses the room to return the brooch to its proper place.

“I don’t know how I’d feel about having two extra-Human people popping up in my life,” Martha says. “The Doctor’s quite enough.”

“At least Silver seems less inclined to whisk you away,” Kate observes carefully.

“No one is going to be whisking me anywhere unless you come too,” Martha says firmly. She returns to stand next to Kate and allows the backs of her fingers to brush against the back of Kate’s hand. She feels pleased as punch when the blonde twists her hand around to hold Martha’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “I promise you.”

Kate gives her a small smile, what Martha privately thinks of as her ‘shy’ smile. “I’m glad to hear it,” Kate says softly. “I do worry about you, you know.”

Martha squeezes Kate’s hand again. “Feeling’s mutual, Stewart,” she says with a sly grin.

Kate rolls her eyes, then tugs Martha close and plants a chase kiss on her lips. “We have to get on with this inventory.”

Martha growls, then leans up and kisses Kate a little less chastely. “Tease,” she says, then purposefully pulls away and grabs the tablet holding the inventory list.

Kate chuckles. “Later,” she says. “I’ll make it up to you for the teasing.”

“I should hope so,” Martha says. Then she moves away and resumes her task. Later cannot come soon enough, she thinks.


End file.
